Shower still gets cold rush!

[Wyatt]

Removed and replaced the shower faucet and added a back-flow device on the hot water line leading to the shower faucet. It’s better, but still get a momentary rush of cold water when pausing the shower head shut off.
Bad back-flow device? Thoughts? Thanks!

[DavidM]

Do you have a tankless or tank type water heater?

David

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by DavidM

Do you have a tankless or tank type water heater?

David

Suburban 6 gallon gas tank model...

[DavidM]

Sorry to keep asking questions, but is it an immediate cold slug or does it take a few seconds.

If immediate then yes I would suspect your back flow device. It may take a pint or so of cold water to shut off the backflow and that is what you are getting when you turn the hot water back on.

If it takes a few seconds, something might be screwy with the plumbing of the winterization three way valves.

David

[bigb]

Does your shower head dribble when you shut it off at the hand held part?

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

Suburban 6 gallon gas tank model...

I fix that problem as a byproduct of another issue. I have same gas hot water heater, but getting zapped with cold water in the shower was one of two irritating things about my coach. The other is inability to dim lights, but I digress

Recently, I had a cartridge in one of the twist knobs leaking in the shower, versus replacing the cartridge for the two twist knobs, I bought a single handle faucet fixture made for RVs with backflow. It works a lot better than I expected. The water is not only perfectly warm or hot every time, but you can use the single lever to calibrated temp as well as to cut on / off. Cutting off on the hand sprayer works just the same.

This was easy fix and cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by bigb

Does your shower head dribble when you shut it off at the hand held part?

They all should dribble when cutoff and water supply is on... that is by design, and I believe a RVIA requirement.

May need a licensed plumber or other expert to tell you why, but my educated guess, is that they don't want people using that as an on/off valve?

[imnprsd]

Nah. The fix is more simple that that.

Your hot water tank "air gag" got reduced.

What you say?

Yes. You need an air gap inside your water tank so that when the hot water rises to the top it can be purged thru the hot water pvc hose.

When the air get gets reduced, you get spirts of cold water or your get spirts of hot water.

Solution: Turn off your water pressure and pump. Then open the overflow valve to the Atwood HWT. Let the water out. Closed the valve. Turn on your water pressure. Things should go back to normal.

...Or you have stuck or partially stuck check valves in your hot water tank.

IMO, you are better off without them. And what I did is this: I drilled the guts out out of those cheap Camco check valves and reinstalled them... now functioning as a pope nipple. The cost was $0 and I have never had a hot water problem since.

HOW TO SAVE WATER

You know when you shower and it takes 5-10 seconds to get hot water? To solve this problem you can insert a check valve before the sink "T-Fitting" that feeds the shower hot water too.

This prevents cold water from mixing with the hot water.

...The only problem is access.

So every model RV is different, but the principles are the same.

You want to keep the hot water separate from the cold water and single handle shower valves (by Moen) mix cold with hot.

Note; IMO, Winnebago should have insulated the hot water hose, but they didn't, because they are too cheap on some things.

[bigb]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

They all should dribble when cutoff and water supply is on... that is by design, and I believe a RVIA requirement.

That was my point, some people replace the shutoff with one that doesn't dribble and they lose the flow of hot water at the shower head resulting in a cold blast at first.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by bigb

That was my point, some people replace the shutoff with one that doesn't dribble and they lose the flow of hot water at the shower head resulting in a cold blast at first.

Ahhhhh

In my case, mine dribbled very good but the cold blast was very frustrating. The only way I could workaround was to increase the hot water when I turned it off, but then I had to readjust hot and cold once I restarted I hated it more than anything. It is a design flaw that Winnebago should be above. None of the ideas I ran across was I willing to try until it developed a leak. I didn't even want Winnebago to fix because they would have just replaced. So I researched and the new fixture I bought was designed to fix this problem; so I gave it try. It is by far my favorite fix

Now, if I could just figure out a way to dim some of the lights. It is either too dark or too bright

[Oakprk]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

I fix that problem as a byproduct of another issue. I have same gas hot water heater, but getting zapped with cold water in the shower was one of two irritating things about my coach. The other is inability to dim lights, but I digress

Recently, I had a cartridge in one of the twist knobs leaking in the shower, versus replacing the cartridge for the two twist knobs, I bought a single handle faucet fixture made for RVs with backflow. It works a lot better than I expected. The water is not only perfectly warm or hot every time, but you can use the single lever to calibrated temp as well as to cut on / off. Cutting off on the hand sprayer works just the same.

This was easy fix and cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The backflow preventer (check valve) is intended to prevent higher pressure cold water from pushing heated water back towards the hot water tank. The backflow on the single handle faucet seems to only block the hose line, not affecting the cold/hot merger. How could it have helped?

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Oakprk

The backflow preventer (check valve) is intended to prevent higher pressure cold water from pushing heated water back towards the hot water tank. The backflow on the single handle faucet seems to only block the hose line, not affecting the cold/hot merger. How could it have helped?

It helped me by NOT doing whatever the heck my OEM fixture was doing. Maybe you can tell me?

I clearly know what it use to be like to get Zapped with cold water every time we stopped and restarted as that is what the OEM did. As I said before; I had another problem (leaking cartridge); and I saw where the Mfg of the other faucet touted that it would stop the cold water zapping. I also read lots of reviews where others were saying it fixed their problem; so for $40 I gave it try. It works perfect. $ for $ it is by far my best fix and favorite Mod.

But my speculative assumption is that pressure stays at constant with single lever feeding the shower hose, where as my old fixture would allow displacement of the warm water with cold in the shower hose when the dominant water flow has been restricted.

There were other benefits
-The stainless still finish, looks a lot better (but note: it is plastic, but very sturdy)
-I now have two ways to stop the flow easily
-No more trying to manually adjust hot and cold water
-The lever simply stays at about 7:00 o'clock, we only flip up (on) or down(off).
-Thus far I noticed we use less water, because we no longer have stand out the way turn on the water and reach in to see if it is warm enough to get back under or if it is to cold or too hot. Not many more ways for me to say it is Perfect; but it is Perfect!!!!

[imnprsd]

I think your OEM check valves are leaking. I drilled mine out and made a pipe nipple out of them. Then I put it back and my hot water has been fine ever since.

I do recommend using a SharkBite check valve if you have 1/2" PEX on the hot water line... just before the "T" under the sink... that then provides hot water to the shower.

My bathroom sink PEX lines are 3/8". I bought them on Amazon and plan to install it this week.

Oakprk gave a good explanation: The backflow preventer (check valve) is intended to prevent higher pressure cold water from pushing heated water back towards the hot water tank.

The backflow on the single handle faucet seems to only block the hose line, not affecting the cold/hot merger. How could it have helped?

* The shower valve is single handle in my rig and when you turn the handle from cold to hot, that pressure will mix with the cold for 5-10 seconds and wastes water. So the check valve is also suppose to deliver hot water faster, but when they put the check valve in the Atwood HWT then you have to purge the whole line to get fresh hot water from the tank to the shower.

So this is why, when I removed the check valves to my Atwood HWH I now want to install a more reliable hot water check valve near my bathroom sink, but before the "T" to the shower... so it address both the bathroom sink and the shower hot water flow.

Note: The only pressure the hot water tank gets is from the cold water side. And since hot water rises, that's why you want a large air gap in the tank. And that is why the overflow valve height is where it is. (Simple... as in you need to be Amish to have invented this stuff.)

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by imnprsd

The backflow on the single handle faucet seems to only block the hose line, not affecting the cold/hot merger. How could it have helped?

Given that it did help... do you care to take a stab at why?

Pieces of info that might be a factor.

- Design difference going from 2 valves associated with the two twist knobs, to a single lever?

- I have Suburban water heater not Atwood?

- My single level unit says it controls temperature and pressure. Maybe when level is set at fixed position and ON; it controls or maintains the inbound water pressure better that a 2 knob system can?

- Perhaps the shower handle (dribble rate) is a factor, or plays in tandem with some other factor above?

- Perhaps the ability to control / regulate pressure on my old (OEM) faucet was faulty, or not performing as it should?

Or is it to suggest that all Winnebago two knob OEM shower faucets in 2019 29VE's will zap with cold water by design? If so; then I really feel good if not even better because my replacement shower faucet & shower head has certainly took away the zapping of cold water in shower; not knowing exactly why notwithstanding

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by DavidM

Sorry to keep asking questions, but is it an immediate cold slug or does it take a few seconds.

If immediate then yes I would suspect your back flow device. It may take a pint or so of cold water to shut off the backflow and that is what you are getting when you turn the hot water back on.

If it takes a few seconds, something might be screwy with the plumbing of the winterization three way valves.

David

Thanks for considering my dilemma.

It takes one second, before it’s cold and I get a cold blast for another one second. Then everything is normal.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by bigb

Does your shower head dribble when you shut it off at the hand held part?

No. It’s a completely on/off valve I installed...

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

I fix that problem as a byproduct of another issue. I have same gas hot water heater, but getting zapped with cold water in the shower was one of two irritating things about my coach. The other is inability to dim lights, but I digress

Recently, I had a cartridge in one of the twist knobs leaking in the shower, versus replacing the cartridge for the two twist knobs, I bought a single handle faucet fixture made for RVs with backflow. It works a lot better than I expected. The water is not only perfectly warm or hot every time, but you can use the single lever to calibrated temp as well as to cut on / off. Cutting off on the hand sprayer works just the same.

This was easy fix and cheap.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks. But I replaced all of the valves and shower head.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

Ahhhhh

In my case, mine dribbled very good but the cold blast was very frustrating. The only way I could workaround was to increase the hot water when I turned it off, but then I had to readjust hot and cold once I restarted I hated it more than anything. It is a design flaw that Winnebago should be above. None of the ideas I ran across was I willing to try until it developed a leak. I didn't even want Winnebago to fix because they would have just replaced. So I researched and the new fixture I bought was designed to fix this problem; so I gave it try. It is by far my favorite fix

Now, if I could just figure out a way to dim some of the lights. It is either too dark or too bright

Since you’re helping me on my issue, I’ve replaced all switches with dimmers. See my signature for a link to that mod.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

Thanks. But I replaced all of the valves and shower head.

Ahhh... That is nice Shower fixtures. I can see why you would not wish for solution that involve another fixture set. As I said in my case , my fix fell in my lap. I doubt if I ever would have gambled to pull a perfectly working set but zapping a few secs of cold with hope that another I would buy would may work But when cartridge went to leaking it was good gamble in my case that paid off.

By chance have you tried another head that did dribble on your new faucet; just to rule out the full stop on shower head?

Regardless good luck.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

Since you’re helping me on my issue, I’ve replaced all switches with dimmers. See my signature for a link to that mod.

I went to your site to see the dimmer switches. I never knew you could comment on on those sites, so I left you a note. Basically I verified that I don't have any ground to my current switches and I don't see how I can possible get ground to 3 of the 4 locations. The one location, I might get a ground is a that switch that is underneath the AirXcel thermostat controller in main hallway. I love Winnebago and they have far exceeded my expectations, but the below are my top 3 pet peeves of my Winnebago which prevents them from making a perfect coach.

1. Zapping cold water in the shower (inexcusable to me) (FIXED)
2. Bright LED lights with no dimmers, worse in that they wired it in a such that you can't even add dimmer (no ground - inexcusable to me)
3. Norcold not being wired to have access to the Magnum Energy Inverter 120vac I think they may have electrical restriction with RVIA
(FIXED)